MDG Success: accelerating action and partnering for impact

 

 

Secretary-General,

Excellencies,

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

1. I am honored to participate in this event, which looks at how we are partnering to achieve the MDGs.

 

2. I am here on behalf of the Secretary-General's High Level Task Force on Global Food Security, where we have brought the UN System together to end hunger and malnutrition and make our food systems sustainable.

 

3. The Task Force helps us speak with a common voice and facilitates regular high-level coordination and voluntary collaboration among its 23 members.

 

4. One example is the technical and advocacy work that FAO, UNEP, and other partners are carrying out regarding food waste.

 

5. We exist to support countries and communities across the globe on matters related to food security. And by joining forces, we increase the reach, scope, impact and quality of the support we have to offer.

 

6. At the center of our collaboratieve effort is the Zero Hunger Challenge, launched by Mr. Ban Ki-moon at the Rio+20 Conference in June 2012. What started as a personal vision is now being embraced by many.

 

7. The Zero Hunger Challenge calls for something new -- something bold, but long overdue: a decisive global commitment to end hunger; eliminate childhood stunting; make all food systems sustainable; eradicate rural poverty; and minimize food waste and losses.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

8. The members of the Task Force seek partnerships with many other development actors -- the private and the non-profit sectors, civil society, and non-governmental organizations, cooperation agencies, and philanthropies -- in a shared cause. Across the globe we have learned that real change only occurs when many social actors join forces in broad political movements.

 

9. Our role must be to seek ever more powerful ways to support, scale-up, and reinforce the broad movements that have merged to end hunger in our times.

 

10. I am delighted to say on behalf of the HLTF that we are fully committed to support all regional, national, and community-owned efforts to end hunger and malnutrition, and to make our food systems more efficient, productive, sustainable, and fair.

 

11. We need everyone. Together we will build a hunger-free and sustainable world within our lifetimes.

 

Thank you.